$100 in 1948 is worth $400 in 1982,
because prices increased 300.4% over that period, an average of
4.16% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$400
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
300.4%
Average inflation rate
4.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$400
Price difference ($100 base)
$300
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1948 → 1982
$400
$100 in 1982 → 1948
$24.97
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1982
Between 1948 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 300.4%, which works out to an average of
4.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1982: the 1948 dollar
lost 75.0% of its purchasing power over
these 34 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 1982 at the same ratio, 4.00: $1,000 becomes
$4,004, and $10,000 becomes $40,041.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1982
$1.00
$4.00
$5.00
$20.02
$10.00
$40.04
$20.00
$80.08
$50.00
$200
$100
$400
$500
$2,002
$1,000
$4,004
$5,000
$20,021
$10,000
$40,041
$100,000
$400,415
$1,000,000
$4,004,149
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1982
Between 1948 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 542.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 130.1%, against 300.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.16%
$400
Medical care
5.62%
$642
Transportation
4.66%
$471
Food
3.95%
$373
Apparel
2.48%
$230
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$123
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$161
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$342
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$400
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $129 by
1964, on its way to $400 in 1982; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $400; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1948 to 1982: $100 is worth $400 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1982/